


The Way You Want Me To

by Jrade



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Breakup, F/F, Marriage Proposal, date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 15:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13238265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jrade/pseuds/Jrade
Summary: Sombra's planned a date - a perfect date, for her and Satya. They've been going out for a while now, and they've both loved it. Sombra doesn't want it to stop, not ever, so she's planned it all out; the dinner, the movie, and all.Almost. Almost all.(An angsty short, be forewarned)





	The Way You Want Me To

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for today was "I love you but not in the way you want me to".
> 
> Warning: this is angsty! I don't know if it's super-crazy angsty, but the point of this prompt month is to explore the darker and rougher side of things, so... here it is! Keep that in mind, heh.

It was the perfect plan.

Dinner, that was standard. Dozens of times they’d got together for the same. Satya always cooked and Sombra always ate too much, groaning in the aftermath as Satya looked at her in just slight disgust, but with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes as well.

This time the meal was eggplant curry over wild rice, and vegetable Pakora on the side. Satya had one plate full. Sombra had three. She groaned, Satya rolled her eyes, and Sombra grinned as the other woman took the plates away into the kitchen.

A movie, that was next. Again, commonplace - they both loved movies, of certain types. Choosing carefully was important, but they’d found a common interest in older ones. Satya thought that anything which had stood the test of time for decades must have been crafted well enough to be a worthwhile expenditure. Sombra just liked movies.

Not nearly as much as she liked cuddling up with Satya on the couch, though. The way her metal hand would work up into Sombra’s long hair, rubbing gentle tiny circles at her scalp. Satya had long since memorized every line of every circuit of the implants that ran along and under her skin, and she’d trace them while they watched.

Every stroke of a finger left stuttered patches of goosebumps in its wake, and made Sombra’s heart ache a little bit in the best possible way, and tonight was no exception. Satya sat behind her, and she laid back against the Architech’s chest - she said she liked it, the weight, and Sombra was more than happy to comply.

Satya always wore comfortable clothing, almost impossibly soft - at least, these days. The first few times she’d come looking absolutely stunning in dresses and gowns, but confessed frustration at it. Sombra told her to wear whatever she wanted. Satya had rolled her eyes. Laughing, Sombra had assured her - yes,  _ really, _ anything she wanted. The next date, Satya had come in fleecy pyjamas underneath a long coat, and she’d never looked more beautiful. Not to Sombra.

One of the hacker’s hands drifted down and stroked at the side of Sombra’s thigh - not too lightly, that was tickly and she’d been told to stop. It was a movement instead halfway between holding and caressing, firm and deliberate.

Satya sighed, nodding, her chin bumping against Sombra’s shoulder. “That is nice.”

Sombra smiled.

As per normal, the movie ended without Sombra hardly noticing. Her eyes were closed, lips curled up in a smile as Satya rubbed at her scalp.

“The film is finished,” the Architech softly murmured, and Sombra hummed.

“Yeah, cool. We can keep doing this though, right?”

She laughed, so softly - such a warm sound, too, so full, and it fell right through Sombra’s ears to her heart. “Of course.” Satya nodded and carried on. She liked tracing the patterns, and she liked that Sombra liked it too. The little happy noises; she suspected she shouldn’t compare it to petting an animal, like a rabbit, but that was what it was like to her. Calming and comforting.

Sombra relaxed even further back into Satya’s embrace. The plan was going well so far - dinner, check. Movie, check. Getting some cuddles, check. Really only one step left, but it was the worrisome one.

It had all been so nice and so wonderful, for months now they’d been dating. The perfect way to relax, the best thing to unwind from after work - even if sometimes Satya tutted and frowned at her injuries.

Wasn’t as if she never got bruised, anyway.

They stay like that for a while before Sombra has enough reminiscing - and gathers the courage needed for what would come next. She leans forward a bit, shuffles and turnes around to be face-to-face with the Architech.

Just a little breathtaking. Or a lot. Beautiful and stunning in an almost literal sense.

“Hey,” Sombra grins, staring deep into those gorgeous honey-gold eyes. She lays her arms on the Architech’s shoulders, interlacing her fingers behind Satya’s head. “This has been lots of fun, right?”

“The movie?” Satya quirks an eyebrow, a smirk turning the corner of her lips just slightly. “You barely watched it at all.”

“Eh, seen it before,” Sombra shrugs. “Anyway, I kinda had a uh… something else in mind.”

The Architech’s eyebrow rises a little bit more, her hands at Sombra’s sides tracing idle patterns over her ribs. “Oh really? Even after the whipped cream incident?”

Sombra’s cheeks flush a little as she dips her head with a chuckle, abashedly. “Hey! I didn’t know it was expired, alright?”

Laughing lightly, Satya nods. “I know. I was only teasing - you said that-”

“I know,” Sombra smiles with a firm nod. “It’s good. You’re good.”

The smile that grows across her face, Satya’s smile - it sends Sombra’s heart skyrocketing and it takes away any doubts she has left, because it’s been a while. They’ve put in the work, they’ve been through the awkward times. Moments where everything broke down because they didn’t quite understand how the other one worked, how to talk to each other.

Not anymore, though. Now it’s all comfortable and wonderful, and seeing that smile on Satya’s lips - like she’s just solved a big puzzle that she never expected to reach the end of - it makes up Sombra’s mind.

“Nah, my idea was uh, a little different,” she chuckles as she lets her fingers slide loose of each other. Her hands withdraw as she slips backward, off of the couch - Satya doesn’t want to let her, at first, and her hands linger in Sombra’s hair but she stays seated and lets go, and Sombra smoothly slides backward and to the ground.

One hand’s already in her pocket, fingers clenched around the little box there - she thumbs nervously at the lid. “It’s just been… really great, you know?” She looks up into Satya’s eyes, she can barely hear over her own heart because the Architech is grinning and nodding back to her, and she wants this to go on forever.

She wants this to go on  _ forever. _

That’s exactly what tonight is about.

“It’s been really great,” Sombra reiterates as she slips the box out of her pocket and hides it behind her back, “and y’know, everybody wants to keep a good thing going, right? And I was out the other night, and I saw this thing, and uh…” she shakes her head with a chuckle, flicking the box open and closed behind her back, “...and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and about you, and, well… that was a couple of weeks ago, and now…”

Sombra takes a deep breath, her cheeks in pain from smiling so much - she pulls the box around in front of her, flips it open, reveals the ring. A triangle of diamonds set into gold.

“Satya Vaswani… will you marry me?”

Her cheeks hurt so much from smiling, and Satya’s staring back. It takes Sombra a moment to realize that the Architech’s not smiling anymore. Her own grin sticks.

For a second.

It starts to fade as Satya’s brow starts to tighten - as those gorgeous honey-gold eyes fixate on the ring, on the box. As she starts to shake her head.

A slow wave of ice spreads through Sombra’s core, gripping at her heart and her lungs; she can see Satya’s lips moving, just about to form a word.  _ No. _

Sombra laughs abruptly, flipping the box shut and pulling it away, stuffing it into her pocket. “Ha! Gotcha, didn’t I? Just a uh- stupid joke,” she clears her throat, tries to turn it into a chuckle, but it doesn’t work.

Satya just keeps shaking her head.

 

\---

 

An hour later, Sombra shuts the door with a sore throat and a soft whimper. She tried to explain - tried to assure Satya that, no, she wasn’t expecting anything. No, she wasn’t demanding anything. No, she didn’t have some deeply-held belief that suddenly Satya’s entire worldview would change, and that she’d become something she wasn’t.

She’d insisted that she wasn’t trying to force anything - she liked it all exactly like it was, dinner and movies and cuddles, and whatever else they wanted to do. She’d insisted that she knew there was a lot that Satya  _ didn’t _ want, that she was unwilling to undertake. She’d insisted that she knew, that she understood.

Satya had insisted harder.

She always had - the Architech won every argument she chose to undertake; either won or withdrew. She stated quite clearly that Sombra had known the whole time that love - that kind of love - was off of the table. She stated that Sombra had promised it wouldn’t be a concern. That Sombra wouldn’t expect it to change.

Sombra had insisted she  _ hadn’t. _ She didn’t. She didn’t want  _ anything _ to change, she just wanted this to continue. All she wanted was  _ this, _ what they already had.

Satya had shaken her head. If all she wanted was what they had, why had she changed things? Making a change meant you wanted change. It couldn’t mean anything else.

Sombra hadn’t known what to say to that, and now she just leaned against the door with Satya’s last words echoing through her head - the last words as the Architech had walked out of the apartment.

“I  _ do _ love you, Sombra, but… not the way you want me to.”

Now, no more words. Not ever again.

It had been the perfect plan.

Almost.

Sombra’s eyes burned as she slid down the door, hitting the floor with a thump and a huff and digging that damned box out of her pocket. Tears dripped onto it as her lips peeled back and she hissed, picking it up to fling it off to the corner of the room. Anywhere away from her. As if she could throw it far enough that it never would have happened in the first place.

At the last moment, though, she stopped and dropped the box into her lap, collapsing over it into sobs.

It might be the only thing she had left of it anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was written quite quickly, and I hope it's good! I mean, I guess I hope it's painful? I hope you liked it, that's the important part - and there'll be more from me this month, too, in a variety of ships and for a variety of angsty reasons!
> 
> If you want some happy stuff for these gals (because let's be honest they deserve it) I've written a longer chapter-based thing for them: ["Streets of an Orphaned World"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11413203) \- it's an AU where Overwatch didn't succeed against the Omnics, and it gets a little rough _during_ it but it's happy overall. A little under 90k words.
> 
> ...okay maybe it's not the best respite from this, haha, but it's something? Anyway, hope you had fun and I hope you have a good day! Bye :D


End file.
